Wednesday and Thursday marked two defeats and one victory for the anti-Semitic boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement against Israel. The movement, which is designed to cut off funding to companies that do business with the Jewish state, met with two defeats at San Diego State University and University of California Santa Barbara, respectively. SDSU’s student government voted 16-3 against divestment, and UCSB voted 16-8 against as well.
At the campus of University of California at Riverside, however, divestment passed the student government by a slim 8-7 margin.
Divestment movements across the United States have cropped up in seemingly coordinated fashion. In January 2014, Secretary of State John Kerry threatened Israel with boycotts internationally should it fail to reach some sort of negotiated settlement with the Palestinians. In March, President Obama stated that if Israel didn’t make concessions to the Palestinians, it would face international isolation, including boycotts.